Season 1: Episode 11 - Indian Summer
The temperature turns hot as Don and Betty turn cold
Season 1: Episode 11
“Indian Summer”
Directed by Tim Hunter
Written by Tom Palmer and Matthew Weiner
Setting: October 1960
As someone who is very annoying about historical accuracy, Mad Men is a joy to watch because they were so exact in their duty to capture history. The namesake “Indian Summer” of this episode seems to be a touch exaggerated but did happen. It appears that this episode takes place from October 11th, 1960 (when temperatures reached a high of 81°F) to October 15th, 1960 (when temperatures reached a high of 85°F).
This isn’t a dramatic enough weather event that it should warrant historic notice like the smog covering NYC in Season 5 but the writers had two good reasons to take advantage of it:
Temperatures rising as tensions flair and characters look for any small relief is a classic story motivator that immediately draws in an audience. Everyone has felt their breaking point under a scorching sun.
We get to see sexy people look terrible… well, at least as terrible as sexy people on TV can.
Roger walks into the office after his heart attack and everyone says “boy, he looks like death” but he’s still more attractive than the vast majority of people you’re gonna see on the street.
How people look on TV is an important theme following the first presidential debate between JFK and Richard Nixon. This was the first broadcast presidential debate in the country’s history and JFK is said to have won it on looks and demeanor alone.
Nixon, wearing no make-up and fresh out of the hospital after a leg injury, look tired and confused. Sweat glistened as he spoke.
Kennedy, in contrast, was cool and collected looking well-rested and clearly the more handsome choice of the two men.
The debate is extremely boring if you ever decide to watch it and the only thing you’ll be able to focus on is Nixon’s sweat.
The point is that people need to look good on TV if they want to sell you something. Most people tuned into Mad Men because of the sex appeal and now that they are locked into the story, we can see these characters having sweaty heat attacks and wearing the most atrocious night gown you’ve ever seen.
In this episode, Peggy is the closest yet to becoming the no nonsense copywriter we know her as. This is not always for the best reason. On a date with a man she clearly does not care for, she speaks down to him about his profession as a truck driver. This match never would have worked but Peggy is unnecessarily rude and already thinks of herself as better than others because of what she has achieved as a young woman in her field and because she works in Manhattan.
Her looks and her personal life do not matter, her career is the only thing in her life. Peggy doesn’t even acknowledge her weight gain because she sees no difference in how her weight would have affected how she pitched Belle Jolie Lipstick. No one looks at Freddy Rumsen and thinks “If only he were prettier.”
This is Elisabeth Moss’ favorite scene from the season because Peggy is coming into her own not just at work but outside it. While she is being rude to her date, he was being rude to her. Peggy doesn’t act the way a woman is expected to because playing by the rules will get her no closer to what she wants. After growing cold with Pete, she doesn’t even think about men or what they want with her.
After all, who needs a man when you have the relax-a-cizor?
Betty takes the true focus on the episode as she imagines a steamy and sudden affair with an air conditioner salesman who looks like someone tried to draw Don Draper from memory (absolutely no offense intended to that actor). It would have been too easy to bring in a sweaty hunk lifting heavy boxes with water running down his stubbled chin as he drinks from the glass Betty hands him. It works much better that this salesman is just some guy who represents a service more than himself. Betty masturbates on her washing machine as she thinks of him not because she is attracted to him or was turned on by anything he said but because he was there for her at a time that Don never is.
Betty’s life begins when Don pulls into the driveway and it ends the moment he leaves. While Don chastises her for allowing a stranger inside their home, she for a single moment felt alive at just the thought of what could happen. She was talking to a man during a moment when her existence serves to do little besides light a cigarette. After Don angrily tells her she should never let a man inside, she even seems to enjoy this cruel explosion from her husband. It is attention she never receives.
Betty has learned that if she only obeys him, she will never get attention the way she desires. Masturbating on a washing machine for a brief moment is perhaps the most powerful Betty Draper has felt during her entire marriage.
Speaking of masturbation, Betty isn’t the only one having a little fun. Peggy discovers that the women’s exercise device she has been asked to write copy for has a more valuable use than apparently shedding a couple pounds. The “relax-a-cizor” does something that many of the men on this show come up short on - it pleasures a woman.
The theme of this episode is that women are necessary in a workplace if you are going to understand your market but, in the 1960s, still find themselves mostly at home and out of influence. Both the buyer and the seller need to understand that sex sells.
Peggy can communicate to women that this device will make them feel good and Betty dreams of being taken by a man that will make her feel good. Both come down to the same pitch.
You need something or someone there when you feel alone.
It is a bit odd that in season one of Mad Men not only have we seen two characters get a gun, we’ve now seen two characters masturbate. It would have been too easy to make this episode and it’s “taboo” subject funny so instead both subjects seem uniquely sad.
Roger almost died and he is immediately back on his bullshit delivering the most cringe lines to Joan as she applies make-up to him.
“Indian Summer” is a quiet breaking point. Something HAS to happen and characters like Betty can feel it in the air.
Don and Rachel cannot put off discussing their future.
Mr. Cooper cannot parade Roger around like he’s alright.
Pete cannot retain the title of “junior” forever, one day he’s going to have to move up.
Once the temperature cools down and the reality of “the way things should be” has comfortably returned, so do the delusions of each character.
It’s like the past doesn’t exist and the future doesn’t matter because the present is under control.
This is a lie.
It only appears to be under control.
You can sell Nixon but you can’t wipe the sweat from a face now at home in the minds of millions of voters.
The past happened and when you acknowledge that instead of ignoring it, the future becomes easier to realize.